Dior J. Stephens

Dior J. Stephens is a proud Midwestern (pisces) poet. He is the author of SCREAMS & lavender, 001, and CANNON!, all with Ghost City Press. Dior’s debut, full-length collection, CRUEL/CRUEL, is forthcoming from Nightboat Books. Dior holds an MFA in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts and is pursuing their doctoral studies at the University of Cincinnati. Dior hopes to be a dolphin in his next life. Dior’s preferred pronouns are he/they. He tweets at @dolphinneptune and Instagrams at @dolphinphotos.

sonnet 3 

say i know you want to say i know you wake
in reverse. in this, the season of no-fruit and
skin-scales across the short-sink. count thirty
dollars and melt prophecies down the
quivered throats of the belabored. no one
works for the luxury of death yet here we all
are, marching towards the tomb. blank-blue
mannequin faces shout: FOR WHAT? the
choir nominates the loser’s love  
for show. the curtain call is cast in
waves, guided by silent stones and
anxious scribes finding fault in the
mirror of three eyes.  language left me
and fled south for greater as i lay caught
in the rapture of you.  

sonnet 2 

sometimes the sun needs a break from us,
too. a winter in west, a winter in east—
there’s no use in calling a spade a spade. a
tundra forgotten, but never
left 
behind to mourn the mellifluous loss of rays
of bees of life served on the streets. we bind
ourselves indoors, wrap our hair for the
pipe dream promise of one day, soon come.
a moon of fire swimming in honey; 
january has left me hungry and  
doomsday clocks knock 100 to
midnight. i find my light in boxes and
sinkholes in the wee small blessings of
the evening.